Well maybe this idea of the self as an independant agency being an illusion is useful - I think so. And it certainly can be demonstrated that the self has no agency, that the feeling of having free will is an illusion - that our experience and actions are determined.
There may be nothing that we can do, but if we see that selfishness is at odds with our global wellbeing, that might be helpful.
Its not considered a leap of faith to believe our experience is a true reflection of reality - I feel like a me with agency, this feels real and obvious, I don’t need to make any leaps, any effort to believe its true.
Yes, ‘insight’ into K’s suggestion that the ‘observer is the observed’ etc. must happen to some degree to call into question seriously that the image of a continuous Self: ‘me and mine’ is actually an illusion. Thought has no control over moments of insight…so how do they occur? Is it through thought becoming aware, questioning the mess of its own life, the fear, anxiety, jealousy, violence, misery etc.? And considering the possibility that a completely different, radical approach to its ‘problems’ is necessary?
In the Rinzai zen tradition they use koans.
The student is given an unsolvable puzzle by their master, and encouraged to dedicate their heart and soul to solving it.
Everytime they feel they might have worked out something clever to offer as a solution, their master tells them that they are completely wrong, that they are using the wrong mechanism to work out their puzzle : analytical thought - and to go back and work ceaselessly on their puzzle as if their life depended on it.
If the student manages to hold their puzzle with a great degree of urgency, yet with no way of solving it, at some point some do actually find their conditioned reality falling away, and see the puzzle clearly as if for the first time.
And in seeing the puzzle in the absence of the known - a space usually filled by the self becomes apparent.
Of course, most students just buy the book : “snappy answers to classic koans” and muddle through with that.
As I had to explain to Paul, thought is not and cannot be aware. Thought is a mechanism that does what it is conditioned to do. If one believes in God, thought reacts accordingly. The same goes for believing in oneself.
Its being caught in an insoluble psychological state - using your words we might say : self-interest and self-impotence (or denial of the self) at the same time. “I’ve got to solve this, but all my efforts prevent any solution”
It is the urgency that allows us to remain with the insoluble. The urgency prevents us from accepting any conditioned conclusions.
What it comes down to is that I, me, mine is the problem that must be solved, and all I can do is perpetuate the problem. Actually realizing this - seeing it - is the solution, the end of it. But this can’t happen until/unless the brain “dies” to everything it has concluded and is committed to; everything that supports its false sense of identity.
This body of belief and presumption is the brain’s psychological content. With little or no self-awareness, there’s little or no self-knowledge, no awareness of this content and its effect.
I thought I was just re-stating a simple point in K’s teaching.
Let me try again : A strong sense of urgency is necessary, or we’ll just go on as usual, with the known or reality as our authority. It is the sense of urgency that is the energy necessary to remain aware in the midst of our constant movement away from awareness.